That's it? That's all you can come up with?
Look, everybody, you people need to realize that the vast majority of people who have more experience with football than any of us agree that Ohio State is the #1 team in the country.
Look at the AP Poll. Sixty-five sportswriters and broadcasters from across the country. They all get to sit down and decide who they think should be the #1 and #2 teams that will play for the NC. Fifty voters put OSU at #1, eleven voters put LSU at #1. No other team got more than one #1 vote (Georgia, Hawaii, VT, and Okla all got one each). USC got zero #1 votes. The two Louisiana voters both pick #1 OSU vs. #2 LSU. One Oklahoma voter wants #1 LSU vs. #2 Oklahoma, the other wants #1 Ohio State vs. #2 Oklahoma. Let's look at Oklahoma's biggest rival, Texas, one of the two quality opponents that Oklahoma beat this year. Three of the Texas voters wanted #1 Ohio State vs. #2 LSU, while the fourth Texas voter wanted #1 Hawaii vs. #2 Oklahoma. Now lets look at the other "quality" opponent Oklahoma beat this year (twice), Missouri. The Missouri voter wanted to see #1 Ohio State v. #2 Oklahoma. What about Colorado, a Big 12 school who beat Oklahoma this year? The Colorado voter wanted to see #1 Ohio State vs. #2 LSU. What about Nebraska, they have a lot of pride in the Big 12, right? The Nebraska voter wanted #1 Ohio State vs. #2 LSU. I could go on and on, but you can see how it all went down for yourself
here.
Look at the Coaches Poll. Sixty Division I-A coaches from across the country, including Les Miles, Jim Tressel, Frank Beamer, Mark Richt, Bobby Bowden, Tommy Bowden, Butch Davis, Rich Rodriguez, Jeff Tedford (California), Greg Schiano (Rutgers), Jim Grobe (Wake Forest), Chris Petersen (Boise State), Bob Stoops (Oklahoma), Mack Brown (Texas), Bill Callahan (Nebraska), Dennis Franchione, (Texas A&M), Dan Hawkins, (Colorado), Mike Leach (Texas Tech), etc. Full list is
here.
These sixty coaches all get to sit down and decide who they think should be the #1 and #2 teams that will play for the NC. Fourty-six coaches put OSU at #1, eleven coaches put LSU at #1. No other team got more than two #1 votes (Okla got 2, Hawaii got 1). USC got zero #1 votes.
Look at the Harris Poll. One hundred and fourteen panelists -- comprised of former players, coaches, administrators and current and former members of the media. They all get to sit down and decide who they think should be the #1 and #2 teams that will play for the NC. Ninety-eight voters put OSU at #1, seven voters put LSU at #1, and six voters put Oklahoma at #1. No other team got more than one #1 vote (Georgia, Hawaii, VT got one each). USC got zero #1 votes. Eddie Crowder (All-American at Oklahoma in 50's, head coach and AD at Colorado in 60's and 70's) wanted #1 Oklahoma vs. #2 Ohio State. Steve Owens (the second Oklahoma player to win the Heisman, AD of Oklahoma in the 90's) wanted #1 Ohio State vs. #2 Oklahoma. You can see who voted for who at this
PDF file.
Now sure, you could say that Vegas has picked LSU as the favorite over Ohio State. But Vegas is taking more into consideration that just who is the best team in the country with everything else being equal. Ohio State has to come all the way down here deep into SEC territory, to our very own backyard, and play in front of our fans, which are respected as among the most intimidating in the country.
Besides, look at it like this, in the 9 years of the modern BCS system, Vegas has gotten the favorite wrong six out of nine times, including last year when they picked OSU by 7 over Florida, and five years ago when they picked Miami by 13 over Ohio State. But if you look at the BCS rankings, you will see that the #1 ranked team has won 5 times, and the #2 ranked team has won 4 times. The BCS ranking has been doing a better job of picking the favorite than Vegas has.
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